G+ Project Management Experiment

I attempted to use G+ as a project management tool -- really to facilitate project communication. I read a few articles that discussed the advantages of using a tool like G+ to cut down on email, facilitate a more transparent and efficient communication, as well as for tracking purposes.

Advantages
It started out well and I noticed the following advantages:

• Circles -- I could organize project discussions by circles, which made it easy for me to locate and respond to project-related questions and comments.
• Hangouts -- the company I work for does allow us to use MS Lync which actually has a very nice desktop share application, but the hangout in G+ provided the same service but tracked it as well. 
• VOIP -- I leveraged the vOIP G+ option often. Again, my team was already accustomed to using voip over the IM, but the G+ tracked when those conversations occurred and I could label them for tracking.
• Reduction in email: I drastically reduced the amount of email I was getting from those team members who participated in the experiment. Instead, we engaged in useful conversation that was easy to track.

Rules
We did set up some ground rules. Since I am the manager, we decided that anything like personnel, HR, or time off requests should still go through email and only project-related information would be discussed through G+.

Learnings
After about four weeks of using G+ I asked those participating to give me feedback and if they felt we should continue using it. This is the feedback I received:

• There is no simple cut/paste option for images
• Circles didn't seem to make sense to anyone but me
• Participants found it difficult to transmit extra-team communication back into the G+ loop
• All (but me) had concerns about CYA
• They didn't like the lack of format options like bullets and so on
• There was no understanding of how this might streamline project-related communication

Honestly, I was fairly disappointed that my team didn't seem willing or able to switch over to G+. I was personally very comfortable with all of the things listed above, but I can certainly see how someone who is already happy with Outlook would have those misgivings, except the CYA. Not only do I hate that term, but it is a remarkable weak way to do business in my mind and only those who don't follow-through with commitments tend to worry about it. Also, we weren't communicating outside our team with G+, so there was no real need for it.

It almost feels like it needed to be 100% or nothing, but during the experiment we still kept our toes in Outlook, and it did get tricky when working with other project team members who were not in the G+ loop (specifically SMEs and other stake holders).

Related articles:
Why You Should Use Google Plus For Project Management
IBM Gives Birth to Amazing E-mail-less Man